15 January 2016

Let's Talk About Drugs, Y'all

Whoa. How about that blog post title?!? A little heavy for a Friday afternoon, no? Hey, if you can't talk about drugs on Friday, then when can you talk about drugs?

*cough* maybe just don't ever talk about drugs, Sarah?! *cough*I'm going to do it anyway because one drug in particular is playing the starring role in a controversy surrounding one of this weekend's playoff games. I'll be the first to say that I'm pretty sheltered when it comes to the world-o-drugs -- you're welcome, Mom. Most of my knowledge comes from what I see on television when I watch the show Intervention. Side note, that is one of my favorite shows of all time. I am not sure if enjoying that makes me a bad person, but I can't be the only one if it comes back, season after season. For the record, I really do hope that the last 5 minutes will show them totally changed, and 3 months clean. SO ANYWAY. Drugs. Have you ever heard of synthetic marijuana? I first heard of it about a month and a half ago when CB and I were walking from the DART (Dallas' rail system) to the AAC for a Mavs game. I personally love the DART and take it anytime possible, but when I used to live in Deep Ellum it was much easier. Now that I live in Oak Cliff, we have to make a train change from the red line to the green line in order to get to the arena for a game. That train change can be avoided if you're willing to brave the 10 minute walk through a potentially dangerous area of downtown Dallas, also known as West End. I've done the walk alone before, but I wouldn't do it alone ever again. This time, I had CB with me, so I felt fine.

As we approached West End's neon arches (shown above), we saw a man with a large trash bag slung over his shoulder. He was hunched over another man who was lying lifeless on the pavement. As he saw us walking closer, the trash bag man stood and began pacing, clearly anxiously awaiting our arrival. As we neared, I saw blood pouring from the head of the man that was unconscious on the pavement. It was right about then that I made a mental note to be patient next time and wait the 15 minutes for the green line to take me to the AAC.

The trash bag man pleaded at us, "Call an AMBULANCE!! Call an AMBULANCE!! I saw him take K2 and he just fell! Oh man, he gon die. He gon die for real. Call an AMBULANCE!"

I did feel like there was a pretty large gap in his story, but rather than question what really happened between the taking of the drug and the gushing of the blood, my focus was primarily on getting out of that alley.

We walked out of the alley and CB phoned 911 who told us they were already on their way to that location. We yelled back at trash bag man that an ambulance and police were on the way. Trash bag man yelled thank you and then BOLTED away from head wound Harry. And here I thought this was trash bag man's dear friend. Shows you how much I know!

Once we were safely eating our Hooters fried pickles, I asked CB what K2 was. He told me it was something called synthetic marijuana... and I'll paraphrase here... but it will "F You Up!"

Are you ready for the CRAZIEST PART?????? Certain strains of totally legal synthetic marijuana can be purchased at one of those smoke shops that you see scattered all over the place now a days. What in the freaking world?

So, with all of that said, the big controversy right now is over the Patriots' Pro Bowl Defensive End Chandler Jones who was hospitalized on Sunday after a bad reaction to synthetic marijuana. Once released from the hospital, he was an attendee at practice all week and is ready to play in the Pats playoff game. The big question looming though, will he be suspended? It is unclear as of right now if synthetic marijuana is actually banned by the NFL, seeing as it is not actually an illegal drug. I saw that guy in the alley, that stuff should without a doubt be ILLEGAL.

So we've got this Pro Bowler tripping on synthetic marijuana right before the most important game of the year, Johnny Manziel pretending (very unsuccessfully) to be his alter ego, "Billy Football" the night before a regular season game and yet the Cowboys are still somehow the butt of everyone's jokes. What gives?

I agree! My mom's a Cowboys fan so I've always been very partial to them (I'm a Panthers fan) and hate how many jokes they have against them. Major eye roll.

But seriously, Chandler Jones ABSOLUTELY shouldn't be able to play in the game!! I know it may or may not be legal (also I think regular marijuana is decriminalized in Massachusetts in general?) but come on. It's got the name marijuana in it!

Okay, maybe I just hate the Patriots and want them to be penalized in as many ways as possible.

I feel like the NFL is always making bad decisions about things like that...like, "hey, this guy took a drug that should really be illegal and had to go to the hospital for it...but it's cool with us, he can still play football!" Also, I know nothing about drugs either, I always have to turn to my trusty friend Google when I really need to know something. Or text my doctor friend (because ya know, don't need those google searches on my work computer...)

My brother made a great point about K2 (or Spice as commonly referred to where I live) when we were talking about drug testing for marijuana. K2 doesn't show up in drug tests, so a lot of people who would normally smoke pot have decided the synthetic stuff would be okay so long as they get to keep their jobs. I'm even talking about the military. Especially the military, actually. I tried K2 a few times about 7-8 years ago, before it was real popular (look at me being all hipster), and even though nothing bad happened to me, that doesn't mean that it couldn't have. I am a much bigger fan of the real stuff. There's evidence REAL marijuana helps with seizures, migraines, anxiety, and more. Plus, it's natural and has not had all kinds of screwed up chemicals mixed up in it. I will say I think the media makes some instances more dramatic than they need to be with K2; we all know how they like to stir things up. So I just say do your research about it a LOT if you're curious as to what it does since everyone is already kind of being over-the-top fanatical about it. With all that said, don't be stupid.

Yeah, spice or synthetic marijuana is terrible. I know someone who got bacteria in his brain from it and now has to live with seizures after the procedure took the bacteria out. I don't understand how it's legal (when there is no regulation on it, and it could have literally anything in it) and then the real stuff (which is much less likely to cause problems like spice does) is illegal.

I don't know much about drugs, but if something like that can leave you that messed up, then they might want to try to have it banned or something. I'm okay with people smoking weed, but this doesn't sound like the weed everyone else is smoking.

I've heard some CRAZY stories about that stuff. I don't understand why people would intentionally mess with this stuff. It's like those wackos down in Florida that started sniffing bath salts and then biting peoples' faces off. How is that fun?

I'm embarrassed to admit I smoked K2 like 7 years ago. I was, like 17-18 though so my defense is that I was an idiot child. I feel like at some point it became illegal or at least regulated here a little bit cause this one shop was selling it for dirt cheap to get rid of it. Luckily nothing bad ever happened to me or anyone I was with. and I do mean luckily. A guy (maybe 20 yo?) in my town took it and then jumped in a lake and died.The details are fuzzy. It's crazy stuff and it's unfair to be lumped in with marijuana when the real stuff doesn't have those kinds of effects at all!

I work at a detox clinic and before I did I had no clue what a high person looked like and no clue about drugs at all. I now know a bunch more than I did before but I haven't heard of synthesized marijuana yet. But if I could count all the bongs and marijuana I've had to confiscate at work....